


Visionary

by varooooom



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur stands tall and looks brightly onward while Merlin continues fighting off shadows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visionary

**Author's Note:**

> Months and months ago, someone told me to write a monologue for Arthur. This has been sitting on my phone for ages, and I figured maybe I ought to actually post it or something.
> 
> Fair warning, though - I don't actually know how to write a monologue! So this is mostly just mushy feelings talk between the boys on a camping trip. Business as usual. To whomever told me to write this, since I've long forgotten, cheers!

> When I was but a boy, no higher than my father's knees on the tips of my toes in an effort to rise to his height, I was summoned from my chambers to the throne room. There was no visiting noble whose name and household I was to recite twenty-five times over in the days prior to their arrival. There was no audience to be held before the People in accordance of a new law or treatise. There was only my father and the King's throne upon the dais ( only the one, for the Queen's throne had not sat beside it in four years' time ).
> 
> Father dismissed the guards that escorted me, leaving just the two of us in silence after the echoing boom of the heavy wooden doors sliding shut faded into oblivion - the sound was nothing compared to the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears. I hadn't done anything wrong, as far as I was aware, though even that much was not guaranteed to stave the King's anger some days. Still, I could think of nothing, and the glint in my father's eyes betrayed no hint of what lay ahead. He merely looked down on me from his place upon the throne, then rose suddenly to stand beside it.
> 
> "Come here, Arthur," and I did. I always did, anything he would ask of me. I came forward to stand before the throne, barely rising to my father's knees, and marvelled upon the intricacies carved into the wood. Four years of age, the King and his pedestal towering above me, and not even the tips of my toes could reach them. 
> 
> "You know what this is," he said. It was not a question, not an observation. A declaration, another command, and I knew it as any other. I knew it as my name, as my blood, as the glare of sunlight glinting off of a golden crown held high atop the balconies. He commanded it so, and so it was. "As the Prince and my heir, one day, this throne will be yours. One day, you will sit upon it as King, before a Kingdom, and it will be yours to rule." 
> 
> His eyes were cold and calculated, filled with intent and purpose as they always were. The eyes of a king, not the eyes of a father; I could count on one hand the times he looked upon me with the eyes of a father. He was King first and foremost, for there was nothing more important than his duty to the People. It was a lesson well learned, and I knew it because he commanded it so. Because one day, _I_ would be King. One day, _I_ would sit upon that throne.
> 
> I looked at it and wondered if one day, I, too, would hold no emotion in my eyes. I dread to think.
> 
> Years passed, and I grew, and grew. And one year, unexpectedly, I grew to be as tall as my father. The same height, without standing on my toes, and yet still he rose higher than me. Still, I could not reach him. I was knighted, coronated as Crown Prince, defeated beasts of magic and armies of men. I grew from boy to man, yet still I could not reach my father. 
> 
> I didn't understand, _couldn't_ , because he wouldn't allow it. Because there was no room for understanding in cold and calculated eyes, no need for understanding to sit upon a dusty old throne, and I was only selfish. A greedy _boy_ , not a man at all, and certainly not a man worthy of the crown. This I realised, and I knew it, because it was so in his eyes.
> 
> And then things changed again; horrible things, impossible things. Losses and betrayals - too many to list - and I watched my father fade away. The colour drained from him, shrunk down to his shoulders, and I stood tall above a broken and battered man. Where before, there'd been no emotion in those steely green eyes, then, there was nothing at all. No light, no life. There was nothing. And then I realised, I'd spent my entire life trying to catch up to a man that had stood still; trying to gain approval from a man with nothing left to give, because he'd already lost it. I took it from him. He never commanded it so, but in that moment, I knew it to be true.
> 
> Because that's the kind of man my father was. He was cold, and I will not deny that he could be cruel. I will not say that I agreed with all his decisions, and there were many times I fought them. My own dungeons are no stranger to me. But Father was not _evil_ , he was ... _lost_. His eyes were clouded, distant. Mired down in loss and bloodshed and ... It is not easy, to be King, yet he woke every day and donned that crown with his head held high. My father, he - he _tried_. His best was not always good and his worst could be _terrible_ , but he gave everything when there was nothing left to give. He kept moving, a man stuck still in time, and for that - I don't know that I'll ever be man enough to fill his throne.
> 
> Yet, still – I don't know that I _want_ to. I lived my years beneath those empty eyes, dreading the day I would inherit them, and fearing that, fearing the loss of life and love and warmth - I realise now that is a strength, not a weakness. I spent so long trying to rise to his level that I couldn't see how terribly _small_ it made me.  I love my father, and I miss him more and more with every passing day. But I have to carve my own throne, cast my own crown, be my own man. I can't let myself be consumed by what could've been, instead of forging towards what will be - and we will be great. Greater than any that came before us, a monument to all that come after. We will be mighty, and when the day should come that I have nothing left to give - I hope that I will stand tall beside him in the Otherworld. I hope that perhaps then, at long last, I might come home.

Merlin blinks moisture from his eyes and he hears Arthur turn in his bedroll as leaves crunch beneath his weight, rough fabric rustling and the links of his mail sliding together - he doesn't catch the King's considering gaze, nor does he look to know the smirk on his lips when he speaks again. He doesn't have to, not when he knows the sight of it as true as the stars that shine eternal in the sky above them.

"Not that I'd expect a simple man as yourself to understand," Arthur teases, thinking himself incredibly funny as always. Merlin would usually snort, but he just keeps blinking, rapidly, turned away in the moonlight. The King continues, oblivious, "You'd likely be satisfied with just a holiday or two, hm?"

Merlin stays silent to feign sleep and resolutely clenches his eyes shut against the frown he can't see on his friend's lips. His friend, his King, his love and his life. The stars and the moon and the Sun above them. Arthur eventually rolls away in defeat and tries for sleep; Merlin knows he'll find none for himself. Not when Arthur speaks of death and greatness - not when these things mean nothing to Merlin. 

"No," Merlin whispers long after Arthur's even breathing fills the empty, cold night air.

 Not when Arthur's idea of finding home is the loss of Merlin's. They will be mighty, yes, and he will have nothing left to give.

"I understand."


End file.
